"where's Isaac?"

[written by my dad, this morning, about my 5-yo little brother with autism]
"Where's Isaac? " Karen [my mom] asked at about 9:00 this morning. We were both in the living room, with Karen folding clothes and me reading on the computer. A quick look through the house didn't turn him up, and we noticed that the front door was slightly ajar. I figured he'd be bopping around the yard. He'd been gone for perhaps up to five minutes by then. I had to get my shoes on, and--fortunately--I grabbed my cell phone. A quick look through the yard didn't turn him up, so I hollered back up to Karen in the second floor window that she should grab her cell phone and come out and look, too.

I asked one guy toward the back of the yard, and two ladies on the street by the front of the yard, if they'd seen a boy, and they hadn't. So Karen and I kept in cell phone contact, and we split up in the ways we thought Isaac'd be most likely to go.

Isaac can move pretty fast, so I figured that if we didn't find him within about 15 or 20 minutes I would call the police and plead for some help to find him. Our town is pretty friendly and non-threatening, so I figured we could get him back fine in the end if he got lost--but only if he didn't get himself hurt or killed in the mean time, running around in the streets.

Fortunately--thank God Almighty--a guy in a car pulled up to Karen and told her he had seen Isaac head down Suvorova, the street behind our house. Karen headed that way, and then told me by phone about the tip, so I headed in that direction, too. She got more tips from three other people who'd seen him. "Are you looking for a mal'chik (boy) in an orange footbolka (t-shirt)?" It's cool--but not freezing--here, and although he did put on his shoes and socks by himself before he went out, he didn't put on a coat. And that's a good thing, because it made him stand out all the more. Someone pointed Karen to a grocery store (Gnyezdo, the Nest) and Isaac, just standing there on the steps. Gnyezdo is about five blocks from our house and across a busy street-- a walk of over 10 minutes. It seems that Karen's moving fast and looking like a distraught mother (who also was wearing just a t-shirt and no coat) helped her get those tips from complete strangers.

So... the biggest thrill of Isaac's short life so far. One we are rather determined not to have repeated. We have figured out a better system for keeping the front door locked...

Well, we thank God for His protection and Isaac's guardian angel, and thank everyone for their continued prayers for Isaac.

--Karen reminds me: when she was first asking, "Where's Isaac?" I was kind of like, "Well, isn't looking around our (tiny) apartment for him a one-person job?" Then I said, "Okay, I'll look, too." We were out on the street within about a minute of all that...

--This is the fourth or fifth time Isaac's run away in the four and a half years since he's learned to walk. Twice we have had people bring him back to us (once at home and once at a tennis court) and had people ask, "Is this your son??"--before we had even realized he was gone. Two years ago he slipped out the front door, down a flight of stairs and into the yard on a cold October day--with just a shirt and diaper on, no shoes--and I found him there when I was coming back from a jog.